Controversial Youth Reform Program May Open in State

VisionQuest, a controversial Arizona-based private juvenile delinquency reform program, is close to obtaining a license to operate its wilderness camps in California.

After years of give and take and several weeks of intense negotiation, VisionQuest and state officials are near agreement to allow VisionQuest to open shop in California, on condition that program leaders not use physical confrontation techniques with troubled youths.

The state Department of Social Services has agreed to waive other regulations that would have prevented VisionQuest from operating the wilderness camps and adventuresome wagon train treks for which it has become nationally known.

The company is preparing to buy land in the Sierra foothills of Northern California and hopes to open a camp for at least 100 youths by the end of 1987, said Jack Germain, who has been handling the negotiations with the state as a consultant for VisionQuest.

“I believe at this point there has been some general agreement that we’re over the hump. There doesn’t seem to be any reason now to believe the remaining problems can’t be solved,” Germain said. “We believe we can accomplish it this year.”

About 150 California youths are among the 700 delinquents in VisionQuest programs in Arizona and Pennsylvania. Almost all of those from California are from San Diego and Alameda counties. Other counties--Los Angeles and Orange among them--would be interested in sending youths to VisionQuest if the program were licensed in this state.

“Almost any program is appropriate for some kids,” said Barry Nidorf, Los Angeles County’s chief probation officer. “If they got licensed and were around, we certainly would consider it.”

Nidorf said, however, that only an “extremely small number” of the 1,800 youths the county has in private programs would fit the independent outdoor program run by VisionQuest.

VisionQuest has been unable to obtain a license in California because the company’s mobile operation and its reform techniques do not fit the state’s model for residential group homes.

Many probation officers and criminal justice experts have also questioned VisionQuest’s claim that it can do a better job rehabilitating young criminals than less costly traditional programs. VisionQuest receives about $35,000 a year from the state and counties for each youth in its custody.

More than anything else, though, it has been VisionQuest’s use of boot camp-style tactics, including physical force at times, that has made the program the subject of years of hot debate.

The death of 16-year-old Mario Cano of Chula Vista at a VisionQuest camp in 1984 spurred allegations of child abuse and prompted San Diego County’s Juvenile Court to suspend placements of local youths in the program.

Cano died at a VisionQuest camp near Silver City, N.M., of a blood clot in his lung. The day he died, Cano was forced to stand in a small square outdoors for several hours and, later, to perform calisthenics until he collapsed, according to reports by the San Diego County Probation Department. A wrongful death suit filed by his parents against VisionQuest and the county is pending in San Diego Superior Court.

After a U.S. Justice Department investigation concluded that VisionQuest had made several improvements to counter criticism--particularly of its medical care--San Diego County supervisors decided to renew the contract.

VisionQuest’s first application for a license to operate in California was denied by the state in 1985. The company also tried, through the Legislature, to gain the right to operate by being exempted from certain regulations. At various times, VisionQuest has employed lobbyist and former state Sen. Bob Wilson and the public relations firm of Bobbie Metzger, a former press secretary to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

Undue Influence Denied

About a year ago, VisionQuest hired Germain, a veteran legislative aide who had worked for the Department of Social Services for a year. Germain’s partner at the time was John Qatsha, another former department official and husband of Social Services Director Linda McMahon. After their firm, GQ Associates, recommended that VisionQuest drop its legislative efforts and concentrate on the administrative route, Germain and Qatsha split up and Germain alone continued to work for VisionQuest.

Germain said his status as a former department staff member did not give him undue influence over the licensing process. He said, however, that his relationships with both VisionQuest and state officials did allow him to make each side more comfortable.

His goal, Germain said, was to get the department to move from its position that VisionQuest could never be licensed as long as it did things that were not allowed in the current regulations.

“The basic problem we were faced with was that the regulations in place were written exclusively to deal with bricks-and-mortar-type conventional group home programs,” Germain said. “What you end up with when VisionQuest comes and talks to the department about getting licensed is a square peg trying to get into a round hole.”

In what he said was an attempt to resolve the stalemate, Fred Miller, deputy director of the Department of Social Services, assigned the equivalent of two department staff members for three weeks to work with VisionQuest on its application.

“I requested this process to eliminate or to bring to conclusion whether or not we were going to license VisionQuest in the state of California,” Miller said.

Miller said he insisted from the start that VisionQuest abandon physical confrontations with youths.

“One of the things VisionQuest did was that if they thought a child was going to act out, they would encourage that episode so that it could be dealt with,” Miller said. “Dealing with that often included the physical confrontation. That is not an acceptable program.”

Germain contends that VisionQuest’s use of confrontations was relatively rare and occurred only under a controlled and programmed chain of events. He characterized the firm’s agreement to abandon the practice as a major concession.

‘Very Positive’

“For a long time, VisionQuest dug in their heels and refused to consider (changing policy),” Germain said. “They didn’t want to change it. They wouldn’t apologize for it. They saw it as a very positive and constructive thing to do because it was an integral part of their program.

“But it was clear the department was taking the position that under no circumstances could they allow that kind of activity to go on in California,” Germain said. “Ultimately, the VisionQuest leadership came to the conclusion it was not going to irreparably alter the basic tenets of VisionQuest to make a commitment to rid themselves of that particular practice.”

With that obstacle out of the way, the rest of the negotiations have been relatively simple, Germain said. Although some issues remain unresolved, he said, the application VisionQuest ultimately submits--perhaps within two months--will in effect already have the department’s tentative approval.